


Swim Down

by starfright



Category: Original Work
Genre: (Can you really consent to an eldritch being wearing your brother as a skin suit?), Anal Sex, Aroused Victim, Blow Jobs, Consent Issues, Drowning, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Horror, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nightmares, Other, Semi-Clothed Sex, Shipoween Treat, Sibling Incest, Spooky, eventual reciprocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:01:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27139759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfright/pseuds/starfright
Summary: It doesn't bother Isaac all that much to have nothing on his brother's gravestone. He doesn't have a body for the grave, either. Ellis drowned on a placid night months ago. It's a shock when the sea gives him back, and a relief… at first. At least until Isaac starts waking up screaming with the taste of saltwater in his mouth.Ellis is different, too. His touch is cold. He can't speak. And he seems to think "please" from Isaac's lips is a plea to be held, instead of freed.
Relationships: Lighthouse Keeper Brother/Eldritch Horror Wearing His Drowned Brother as a Skin Suit
Comments: 16
Kudos: 47
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	Swim Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).



Isaac stands on the rocky edge of the island, where the grass abruptly halts and the earth drops straight into the sea. When he shifts his weight in (unsuccessful) search of respite from the chill wind, soil crumbles under his boots. Pieces of earth drop into dark, foamy water. Isaac knows from unhappy childhood experiment that the water in this spot is deep enough to swallow him whole if he steps into it, even having grown a foot since he'd last been that foolish.

The ground under him is unsure, but it also affords the best view of the mainland. So Isaac lets the sun beat down on the back of his neck. It'll be dark in a few hours. He has work to do.

Instead he stands at the edge of the island, by water deep enough to disappear into, and wonders when he last visited the mainland.

It's right there. He can hold his hand up and pinch the docks between his fingers. There's a boat tied up a little ways down that can take him straight to those docks, as long as his hand is sure. But he can't remember the last time he climbed into it. Isn't that something funny?

It always had been Ellis who'd kept account of their days.

—

Ellis had been older than Isaac by three years, taller than him by two inches, and strong enough to carry his younger brother over his shoulder. He'd had Isaac's dark hair and their mother's light eyes. Their parents' gravestone is on a hill at the opposite end of the island from the lighthouse. It reads _Louis Simon & Beloved Wife, Mabel,_ and Isaac has kept it clean since it was put up several years ago, the summer he'd turned eighteen. He has a stone for Ellis's grave, too, but it's still blank.

It doesn't bother Isaac all that much to have nothing on his brother's gravestone. He doesn't have a body for the grave, either.

Ellis drowned on a placid night. The sea had been so still Isaac could pick out constellations reflected in the water's surface. He'd been standing on the dock doing as much when Ellis's lantern appeared on the horizon. Isaac waved and lifted the rope he always used to tie the boat to the dock. There'd been no wind to rustle his hair and no waves to splash against the dock. The lantern at the bow of the boat had been as steady as the beacon up in the lighthouse itself.

The beacon flashed over the water. Isaac had seen Ellis raise his hand in a reply wave. Then the beacon turned its back on them, the clockwork spinning steadily on.

When the light came back a moment later, it showed Isaac a still sea and an empty boat.

Five months on, Isaac tries to avoid the water. That's probably why he can't recall his last trip to the mainland. Rations are brought by freight every month, on schedule. The mainland is for extras. For trips and entertainment. But now Isaac is the only Simon left and there's only so much he needs for himself.

The Lighthouse Service sent someone else along to live in the house on the opposite end of the island, close to the Simons' graves. Before he came, it'd been years since anyone lived in that house. The old family moved away when Ellis had been old enough to help their father with work. The new man is quiet. He does the work with few words. Sometimes he takes the boat to the mainland himself, Isaac remembers that now. His name is Henry. Henry asks Isaac if he needs things, when he goes to the mainland. Isaac always says no. He always says no to getting in the boat, too.

When he can resist, Isaac keeps away from the water.

Of course it's impossible not to _see_ it, and he has to watch it while he works. But that's something else. He's high up and the water stays far away from him. He could never leap from the lighthouse into the sea, like he dove into the water from the dock the night Ellis drowned. The lighthouse is hot and dry and nothing like the cold darkness that closed over his head on every other stroke as he'd swum out to the boat.

He'd done laps all around the boat. He'd grasped onto the side, and taken deep breaths, and plunged underneath. 

Down, down, until when he looked up he couldn't see the speck of the lantern burning. His lungs heaved in his chest and forced him to turn back empty-handed.

Sometimes in the safety of the noonday sun he looks at the water. Sometimes, when he can't resist, he walks all the way to the edge of the island. He lets soil crumble under his feet and remembers his brother teaching him to swim. Remembers daring each other to jump into the deep spots long after they both should've known better. He watches the horizon, and he waits for Ellis's body to bob to the surface.

That turns out to be a waste of time. When Ellis finally comes back, Isaac is sound asleep.

—

Normally dawn light streaming in through the curtains wakes Isaac up.

That morning what wakes Isaac up are two drops of cold salt water on his cheek.

Isaac flinches, turning away from the wall and scrambling to get his feet on the floor. The blanket twists around his legs. Another splatter of salt water falls onto his face. The whole world lurches.

For a second the sunlight is at the wrong angle, the low suggestion of sunset.

Isaac blinks. The sunlight vanishes completely. It's the middle of the night and the blankets wrapped around his legs are heavy and soaking with seawater. He tries to lift his arms and feels the slimy slide of seaweed against his skin. Thrashing makes bubbles billow around his face. He shakes his arms until the seaweed drops away, and kicks until the blankets drop to the floor. But when he moves to swim away, seaweed snags around his ankle, gets caught across one thigh. It stretches taut when Isaac pushes his fingers under it. When he opens his mouth he tastes salt, and when he lifts his chin he can't even see the speck of the lantern burning in the boat at the surface. Is he facing the right direction?

Should he swim up, or down?

Isaac blinks again.

He's sitting on his bed. His feet are on the floor, along with all his (dry) blankets, and he's struggling to breathe but there's no water on his tongue, no salt on his teeth.

Ellis cups Isaac's face in both hands. His light eyes look gray in the curtain-filtered sunrise.

"You're not dead," Isaac gasps.

His brother says nothing. His fingers are cold against Isaac's jaw.

—

"I missed you so much," Isaac says.

"I looked for you, all the time," Isaac says. "Every day."

"I swam until I ran out of air. I dove down from the boat and looked so hard. I only came back because I thought… I thought I would…" Isaac stops himself. Swallows.

It takes a moment before he can speak again. "I tried so hard, Ellis. I tried."

Ellis sits on the bed next to him and says nothing. He watches Isaac's mouth as Isaac speaks. His eyes are still gray, a pale, washed-out color, and it looks like the same thing has happened with his skin. When he holds still, he looks like one of the now-faded photographs their mother put up on the wall when they were kids.

"I missed you," Isaac says again. It's hard to get the words out around the knot in his throat. "How did this happen?"

Ellis raises his eyes from Isaac's mouth, but he doesn't reply.

Isaac's heart begins to sink.

Ellis rests his cold hand on the side of Isaac's face. His fingers are so gentle, Isaac feels guilty about wanting to flinch from the chill. He has to steel himself not to turn away. He waited so long. Surely he can handle a little cold.

"Where have you been, Ellis?" Isaac asks.

Ellis touches their foreheads together.

—

"I think… I think you should stay here," Isaac says. He gently pushes Ellis's hand away. It means he has to pause to unhook Ellis's fingers from his shirt. "I don't think Henry will… I think I need to think about what to tell Henry," Isaac says, his face heating.

Isaac's heart beats painfully in his chest, and Ellis threads his fingers through Isaac's, his hand clammy against Isaac's own. Isaac knows he's fumbling all this. But it's been three hours and Ellis hasn't said a word.

What Ellis has been doing is touching Isaac.

It's winter. The weather is turning mean, but the house is warm. The monthly supplies shipment includes fuel for the lighthouse beacon and coal for Isaac's stove, too. When he keeps the stove stocked overnight and doesn't shut his bedroom door all the way it keeps his room relatively warm as well. The kitchen and sitting area - it's all one room - are the warmest.

None of that seems to matter when it comes to Ellis. All of his touches are chilled. Like wisps of fog, seeping in around the door and windows.

Ellis squeezes Isaac's fingers. He brings his other hand to Isaac's shoulder, and his fingers dig in through Isaac's sweater. Now that the sun is up proper Ellis's eyes look normal. Light, but blue. He isn't blinking as often. Or he's blinking in time with Isaac. Or it's been so long that Isaac doesn't know how much a person blinks. It isn't as if he watches Henry for it.

Sighing, Isaac reaches up and covers the hand on his shoulder with his own. Ellis's eyes drift down to look at where their hands meet.

Isaac says, "I'm sorry. But if I don't go, Henry will come here. I'll be back in a few hours. You know how it goes. You remember."

If Ellis doesn't remember, he doesn't say.

It takes some doing to get out the front door. Isaac has to push Ellis's hand down from his shoulder. Then he has to untangle their fingers. When he walks over to the hooks on the wall and picks up his coat, both of Ellis's arms wrap around him from behind. It doesn't exactly make the room lurch. Isaac blinks, but isn't submerged in an opaque sea. He looks down to see his brother's arms criss-crossed over his stomach. Draping his coat over his arm, he uses one hand to push at Ellis.

Ellis makes the first noise he's made in hours, aside from breathing. He moans as if in pain.

Isaac freezes. His fingers aren't even touching Ellis's bare skin. (He doesn't like Ellis's bare skin. His brother is cold, despite the stove. His brother is clammy, despite being on solid ground. Isaac shouldn't flinch at the touch of his living brother's skin. He doesn't like to think about how he wants to flinch.)

"Are you okay?" he asks.

There isn't a second noise. If Ellis's mouth hadn't been near to Isaac's ear, Isaac would've brushed it off. Just something creaking in the wind off the sea. He hears the same kind of noise a dozen times a day.

Ellis's chest presses against Isaac's back. Isaac raises his head, to look away from Ellis's arms wrapped around him. The hooks where the Simons have hung their coats for two generations are empty. (Ellis had drowned in his coat. He'd been wearing it when he went under. Isaac used to look at the hook where his brother would hang his coat and think about how heavy it must have been, when it was waterlogged.) The wall is only a few inches from Isaac's face. If he wanted to step forward, there would be no room.

If he wanted to step forward.

"I'm sorry if I… I'm sorry if I hurt you."

Isaac's heartbeat is sharp and painful, again. Ellis is alive. Ellis has Isaac held against his chest, safe and sound, the both of them. Isaac has to work. Touching Ellis is (wrong, cold, clammy) hurting him? Is Ellis so fragile? Had he clawed his way out of the sea, half-recuperated on the mainland, just now come back to the island? He hasn't said. Can't or won't. There's only been that moan of pain, at Isaac pushing him away.

But Isaac has to work. The lighthouse needs two people, Henry can't do it on his own.

"I'll come back in a few hours."

Ellis sighs.

"Please," Isaac says.

When Ellis had been alive… 

Before Ellis had drowned… 

Before Ellis disappeared, when they'd been younger, they used to fight. Over stupid things, or just beause there'd been nothing else to do. Their mother despaired of them. She always made them wash their own clothes, if they came back wet from sea spray, with sand clinging to their shirts and dug into crevices Isaac prefers not to think about. Isaac never won. Ellis had been older than Isaac by three years, taller than him by two inches, and strong enough to carry his younger brother over his shoulder. He always managed to get Isaac pinned on his stomach, or twisted into a painful position he had to beg to be released from. 'Please' had always done it. Ellis had been stronger, but he hadn't been unreasonable.

"Please," Isaac says.

Ellis sighs, and lets him go. He takes several steps back.

"There's, uh. There's a new book on the shelf. I'll… be back in a few hours," Isaac says, sidling out the front door. 

He waits until he's outside to stop and pull his coat on. He left his hat on the hook, but he doesn't go back for it. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and doesn't look over his shoulder until he's well towards the lighthouse. Of course it's impossible to say for sure, because Ellis had always been the one who cared about keeping the windows well cleaned, but Isaac thinks he sees the shape of his brother's face in the glass. Watching him leave.

—

Ellis doesn't eat, either.

But that can't be right.

Between day work and night work, Isaac comes back to the house for dinner. Sometimes Henry invites him to the other end of the island, but Isaac has never accepted. It's hard to tell whether the invitations are rote or genuine. Normally, too, Isaac needs a break from company. Being on the island makes it easy to be still inside himself. It's why he likes the work. He and Henry don't speak much, but compared to an empty house, work still feels crowded. So when Henry invites him today, Isaac says no.

Besides, he can't leave Ellis waiting. Not today. Not the first day he's come back.

Isaac asks, "Did you wash up on the mainland?" Isaac asks, "Did you hit your head?" They've read books about people like that. Newspaper stories. Someone hits their head, anything can happen. They can forget who they are or where they live. They can forget how to talk. "Did you ask someone to drop you off here?" Isaac asks, because he'd surveyed the perimeter of the island from the top of the lighthouse, and he hadn't found so much as a raft. Henry surely didn't mention bringing Isaac's dead brother back with him from the mainland.

Ellis watches Isaac eat dinner and says nothing. But he doesn't shake his head no, either.

He'd hit his head. People do that, they can forget how to talk.

But they can't forget how to eat. Even someone who's perpetually cold and doesn't speak has to eat. Isaac puts his own dishes away and excuses himself to wash up. When he comes back, Ellis is washing both their plates. He must have wanted to eat alone.

"I have to go back to the lighthouse. Don't wait up. You know how late it gets," Isaac says.

Isaac smiles and takes a few steps back, before Ellis can turn around and catch hold of him. Ellis's eyes are still blue, in the setting sun coming in through the open kitchen curtains, but his mouth turns down at the corners. Ellis holds his hands up in front of him, his fingers crooked slightly. He's looking at Isaac's arms.

"I'll be back," Isaac tells him. "Please don't wait up."

—

Ellis may not talk or eat in front of Isaac, but he must sleep. Isaac figures this is true because when he comes back from his night work, Ellis is seated in their mother's old rocking chair. He'd pulled it right up to the window that faces the lighthouse. His eyes are shut.

There's a blanket on the back of the chair. Isaac stops to pick it up and drape it over Ellis's lap.

It's only been one day. Ellis is so tired, he barely looks like he's breathing. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his eyelids seem so thin that Isaac can see his eyes dancing back and forth underneath them, caught in some undercurrent of a dream. He must have been watching the lighthouse and remembering how it used to be. It's only been one day. Tomorrow, they can talk.

Isaac goes to bed.

—

It's like that for a week. It's strange, how the beginning of a week can be so strange, and the end of the week can be so normal.

Isaac gets up in the morning. He knows Henry sleeps late, so he takes Ellis on short walks. Ellis likes to walk to the shore, and Isaac hangs back, even when it means having to pull himself from Ellis's grip. He is very careful when he has to pry Ellis's fingers from his skin. Ellis seems to remember the rhythm of lighthouse work, but he doesn't remember how to talk. Not yet. Isaac is careful.

Still, sometimes, Ellis moans again. It's a painful, wrenched sound, and once it's accompanied by such a confused widening of Ellis's eyes that Isaac capitulates and allows himself to be dragged to the shoreline. Ellis calms, the closer he is to the water.

Toward the end of the week, Ellis is agitated. Isaac had accidentally pushed his arm too hard, when Ellis had surprised him with a hand on Isaac's hip. Ellis keeps rubbing at his arm. He stares at the surface of the sea and takes in rattling breaths through parted lips. Isaac stands next to him, watching soil crumble under his boots. Pieces of earth drop into dark, foamy water.

Ellis takes to clutching at Isaac's wrist. It's harder for Isaac to accidentally hurt him that way. (It's harder for Isaac to pull away.)

"It's getting time for lunch," Isaac says. He hates the whining quality of his voice when he adds, "Please?"

He doesn't want to hurt his brother. Ellis is so fragile, now. His skin is so pale Isaac can see the blue lines of his veins in his arms, when Ellis takes his shirt off to change into another, or to scrub himself clean in the tub after Isaac has taken his turn. Isaac doesn't want to hurt him, and 'please' has as much sway as it ever did. Even if it does make Isaac sound like a whiner.

Ellis allows himself to be led away from the water and back to the house. He keeps his hand around Isaac's wrist the whole way home.

—

Visiting the graveyard is not a short walk. But Ellis wakes Isaac early, sliding his hand under the blankets to grasp Isaac's shoulder and shake him awake almost half an hour before the sun rises. They have time before Henry should be up, even if the graveyard _is_ near to Henry's house. There are trees around it, besides. The two of them should be shielded.

Isaac still hasn't figured out a way to talk to Henry about Ellis.

Of course Henry knows Ellis died… That Ellis drowned… That Ellis had vanished. The Lighthouse Service told him when they'd sent him out here. Isaac is just trying to find a way to explain, without Ellis being able to speak for himself. The longer it takes, the less Isaac feels he might find the right words. The longer it takes, the bigger a secret Ellis becomes, and the stranger it is that Isaac can't simply celebrate his return. Hard to celebrate being shaken awake by a shadowy figure half pinning him to the bed.

Isaac is being uncharitable. Hot shame flushes him at his reflexive revulsion to Ellis clambering onto the bed to wake him. It settles in his skin, stronger than the chill from Ellis's touch. It's part of why he allows Ellis to hold his hand as they make a circuit of the island. It's part of (the main reason) he allows Ellis to wander toward the graveyard.

Their parents' gravestone has frosted over. Isaac relaxes his hand, and after a moment, Ellis releases him. Isaac kneels in front of the stone and swipes his palm across _Louis Simon & Beloved Wife, Mabel,_ until the letters are clear.

Ellis's gravestone is next to it. It's a squat thing. Really, it's just a marker Isaac dug up from somewhere else. The engraver would have given him something else, had Isaac ever made it down to the shop. There's frost on it, too, but Isaac doesn't bother to wipe it off.

"I guess it's a good thing I hadn't decided on an inscription for your marker," he says. He rests his hand above _Simon_ and curls his fingers over the top of the stone.

Behind him, leaves crunch under Ellis's feet. Both his hands settle on Isaac's shoulders.

"Do you remember when Ma died, and Da came back with this stone?" Isaac asks. He doesn't mean to, but he can hear his voice getting softer. "You had the worst row. You were so angry he'd gone ahead and had his own name inscribed, and he was furious you couldn't see why he wanted to do it. I had to do your beacon work for a month because you two could barely stand to be in the same room. You moved out to Henry's house and I thought you weren't coming…"

When he can't finish the sentence, Ellis lifts one hand and gently rakes his fingers through Isaac's hair.

Isaac draws back from the stone and crosses his arms over his stomach. His knees are starting to protest being down on the bare earth like this.

Ellis doesn't say anything. He thoroughly ruffles Isaac's hair, and then he puts his hand back on Isaac's shoulder.

"He just didn't want us to have to do it. I kept trying to tell you that, but you wouldn't let me talk about him. But that's all, Ellis. He didn't want us to have to go to the engraver on the mainland, or figure out whether to bury him here or with his parents in town, and…" Isaac stops himself.

The frosted lump of Ellis's marker just sits there.

Their mother had died. Ellis had stormed off to the empty house with only a bag's worth of things, and every time Isaac had gone to see him, he'd tried to smuggle more over. They had eaten lunches together. Ellis had been happy to talk about anything but their father. Ellis had been so animated, his voice loud, his eyes bright blue. He'd talked to Isaac about traveling. How he could just take a spot on the supply ship when it came, because it wasn't as if their father would miss him.

He'd laughed and mussed Isaac's hair when Isaac had said _he_ would miss Ellis.

"I know you stayed because I got sick," Isaac says, finally. "I know you were going to leave. That's why I told Da he shouldn't tell you."

Ellis squeezes his shoulders.

"It's not that I didn't want you to stay." Isaac busies himself scrubbing at the engraving on their parents' stone with the cuff of his sleeve. He'd never told Ellis this. He'd felt so awful, when he'd been well enough to realize the person taking care of him at night was Ellis and not their father. "I just didn't want you to hate me like you hated him."

And then it'd been winter, and Ellis had moved back into the house to 'keep an eye on Isaac.' Travel wasn't practical in the winter, he said, and a spring trip would be better anyway.

Then Ellis had said he didn't want to leave Isaac alone on the island with whoever the Lighthouse Service sent to replace their father, when his heart didn't make it through the winter without their mother. And Isaac hadn't said anything at all, not for years, because he didn't want Ellis to hate him.

Ellis pulls on Isaac's coat until Isaac is on his feet. He hugs Isaac from behind, his face pressing into Isaac's scarf.

They leave. They need to get home before Henry has the chance to see them.

That night, Ellis is still awake when Isaac gets back.

—

Isaac opens his mouth to let the saltwater spill in. It pours down his throat, splashes into his stomach until his body aches. When his stomach is full, the water fills up the whole of Isaac's throat, until he's thrashing and gasping and drawing the sea straight into his lungs. It hurts so bad his eyes tear up, though Isaac isn't sure how he knows the difference between tears and sea. The cold, dark water has closed over his face. He can't tell up from down. There's no lantern light ahead of him. He turns his head and can't see the glimmer of the lighthouse beacon.

The water is heavy. That's the thing a man learns, when his brother teaches him how to swim straight down.

The water soaks Isaac's thin pajamas until they weigh more than he can bear. Wool clings to Isaac's chest, his thighs. The legs of his pajama pants should billow in the water but they stick tight to his ankles when he tries to kick himself forward (up or down?). Water spills out of his eyes and down his throat, into his lungs. Water sloshes in his stomach.

Isaac is so cold he can't feel his fingers. It's so dark he can't see the lantern, or the lighthouse, but he can see the pale shapes of his hands cutting through the water.

He reaches forward. He has to be at the surface. It takes effort to swim down, Ellis had taught him that (and taught him again, when Isaac had failed to rescue him). Isaac doesn't have the strength to swim down so he must be swimming up. He reaches forward, expecting his numb fingers to break the surface. He expects to feel a cold wind against his fingertips.

Instead Isaac's nails dig into sand. He's swum all the way to the bottom.

Underwater, screaming means he swallows more of the sea. His stomach and chest ache. Isaac is so full that when he gags nothing happens except to shake his body in Ellis's grip. He kicks, trying to swim up, and the strong iron bars of his brother's arms hold him fast. Isaac clenches his numb fingers into fists and pounds at his fragile brother's arms until they break.

None of it matters. There's seaweed wrapped around Isaac's ankles. A band of it is tangled around his thigh. It pulls taught when he pushes at it. It pulls him down until his bare feet touch wet sand.

Isaac screams. There's salt on his teeth.

Ellis's hand clamps over Isaac's mouth.

Isaac is pinned to his (dry, very dry, and too hot to have been warmed by one body alone) bed. His feet are tangled in blankets, not seaweed, and his forehead is pressed to a pillow, not the sandy bottom of the sea. His knees dig into his old mattress and when he screams again it is against the dry (if cold) palm of his brother's hand, clamped over Isaac's mouth.

Water isn't filling Isaac's stomach, or his lungs. He can breathe. The only salt on his face is from startled tears. He's gasping for breath, but his brother digs his fingertips into Isaac's face and holds him still. Ellis doesn't pull his hand away. Ellis doesn't move back. Ellis is kneeling behind Isaac and bent over him, so his chest is pressed to Isaac's back, and his other arm is pinning Isaac down against the mattress. It's like they had a fight with Isaac's nightmare, together. Isaac looks at the pale blue fabric of his sheets and chokes against Ellis's hand.

There's no water in Isaac's lungs, or his stomach. He can breathe, but his pulse is still painful. He goes limp underneath Ellis and breathes until his body has slowed down.

"Please," he mumbles, against Ellis's cold hand.

Ellis lets him go but doesn't climb out of the bed. Isaac is too tired to do anything but stretch out along the mattress.

When the sunrise wakes Isaac, later, Ellis has drawn the blankets up over the both of them. His body is on top of Isaac's, and Isaac has to say "Please" twice before Ellis lets him up. (Has his brother always been this heavy? They haven't shared a bed since they were children.) Ellis presses a kiss to Isaac's temple before he finally moves back.

He follows Isaac the whole morning. One of Ellis's hands is always on his brother. Even when they sit down to eat (Ellis always eats after Isaac, after Isaac leaves, and has started washing both their dishes, and Isaac has stopped thinking too hard about it), Ellis sits next to Isaac instead of across the table. He leans against Isaac's side and keeps their shoulders pressed together.

When Isaac's hand shakes and spills his food from his fork, Ellis puts a steadying hand on Isaac's thigh. The nightmare has left Isaac too shaken to protest. Even when Ellis rubs his hand back and forth against Isaac's leg.

Isaac doesn't come home for dinner.

For the first time, he accepts Henry's invitation to the house at the other end of the island. If Henry is surprised he doesn't say.

Ellis sleeps in Isaac's bed again. He's there when Isaac starts to scream. He stays, even when Isaac stops.

—

"We can't go on a walk today. You'll have to, um." Isaac hesitates. "What do you normally do when I'm gone?"

But of course Ellis isn't going to answer. He tilts his head to one side. He must have already been outside this morning, before Isaac woke up, because his hair is a windswept mess of dark curls. He's pushed his sleeves up to his elbows. The dark circles under his eyes aren't as bad as they were when he first returned, but his arms are still pale, and the blue veins stand out.

Isaac clears his throat. "You can read. Or, you know, we never got rid of Da's woodwork stuff… I have to update the records, I'm behind."

Normally, Isaac would do that work in the morning. Lately he's been walking with Ellis instead.

He digs out the record book and stands at the pantry, making careful tallies. Sometimes he goes back and counts again. He expected to be lower on certain things by now. This has never been his strong suit, though. Holding the pencil makes his fingers feel clumsy.

"Are you sure you're eating enough?" he asks, when he's near to done.

Ellis is sitting at the table. There's a small book spread out in front of him. He looks up and blinks at Isaac. He doesn't seem distressed.

"I don't know how I'd explain being low to the supply people, but I can get you more food. You shouldn't be going hungry." Isaac sets the notebook down on the table, open to the last page, and hesitantly lays his hand on Ellis's shoulder. He's never sure about the line between comforting and hurting Ellis, now, but Ellis leans into his touch. "I have some money saved up. I could go into town with Henry and get some extra-"

Abruptly, the expression on Ellis's face shutters. He shakes Isaac off and closes the supply notebook.

"Um."

Ellis pushes back from the table. For a second Isaac expects him to stalk outside, but instead he walks to the cabinet and begins sorting through the food there.

Isaac stares at him, confused. His life lately has become a balancing act of asking Ellis the right question, the kind that can be answered with a shrug or a shake of the head. But it's pretty clear that what Ellis is doing is making a plate with bread, beans, and a small strip of salted pork out of their stores. There isn't a question to be asked about that.

Sighing, Isaac sits in the other chair. "I'm sorry, Ellis. I just worry, and it's hard to… Have you been reading my journal?"

There's no answer. Ellis is at the counter and doesn't turn around to face him.

Heat builds in Isaac's chest. He picks up the book Ellis had been looking at and turns it so the writing is right-side up. The book is small and brown and old. Isaac had gotten about three quarters of the way through it before he'd given up, sometime after Da's death. The most recent entry is from over two years ago. That isn't the page that Ellis had been looking at, though. Ellis had flipped through until he'd found the section from that awful summer when he and their father had been fighting, and looking at the page makes Isaac's chest hurt.

His handwriting is cramped. He'd been trying to push as many words onto each page as possible. Back then, _everything_ had hurt, and he'd worried about running out of room for it.

_another fight with Ellis today. Tried to tell him how hard things still are for Da, but he said if I wanted to talk like that I could leave. Shut up instead. He calmed down and started talking about Chicago again. Says the best way to get there is a train that stops in New York, and how if I came with him he would stay in the city with me until I got to see things. Nodded along. If Ellis goes, I can't_

The pain has settled in Isaac's chest, but the heat's spread up to his face. He thinks about the blank grave marker on the other end of the island and how it never would've been there in the first place if he hadn't nodded along. If he'd just told Ellis to go, if he hadn't been worried about losing him. But this had been private. It'd been a secret fear, and Isaac hadn't been the one to knock Ellis out of the boat (why does he imagine Ellis being knocked out of the boat? Ellis had been alone, there had been no one to knock him over).

He shuts the journal. There must be somewhere else to put it other than under his bed. The rafters? There's a loose floorboard in their parents' old bedroom.

But hiding it would mean he'd need time when Ellis isn't in the house.

"I wish you hadn't read this," Isaac mumbles.

He doesn't want to look, but he knows what else he'd been writing at that time: How the island seems so huge on its own, but Ellis acts like it's the smallest place in the world. How Ellis talks to people in town and drags his feet about coming back. How, since Ma died, Ellis wants _out,_ and all Isaac wants to do is hide on the island and watch the water.

What must Ellis have thought, reading that?

"You don't have to stay for me," Isaac blurts. He picks the journal up with both hands and refuses to look up, even when he can hear Ellis turn around. He keeps talking, words spilling out of him so fast it makes his voice waver. "I… I'm glad you're back. I'm glad I know you're back. But you don't have to stay, not for me. You almost died because I was here. You should leave and go to Chicago, or wherever-"

Ellis puts the plate down on the table. Then he cups Isaac's face in his hand, and forces Isaac to look up at him.

"I'm not crying," Isaac insists, angrily, at the look on Ellis's face. He isn't. His face is dry. "I'm not a child."

Both of Ellis's eyebrows go up.

"You should go," Isaac tells him.

He hears paper crinkle and realizes he's curled the journal up in his hands. He wants to throw it across the room, but Ellis would probably pick it up and then he'll never get it back. Ellis is just looking down at him, face open and at ease, none of the strange reaction to Isaac suggesting visiting the mainland left. It makes Isaac so angry, his hands start to shake. 

"I like the lighthouse. I like the quiet. I like the island, and the sea."

Ellis's hand slips into his hair, and Isaac tries to pull away but can't. Ellis moves his hand to the back of Isaac's head to force his brother to look up at him again. His mouth is turned down at the corner. His eyes seem more gray than blue in this light and he looks thoughtful, and serious, and it's not fair. It's not fair that Ellis is so serious, that he's so pale, that he can't talk.

"You don't have to stay for me. I'm happy you're back, but you should go. Please. You wanted to go! You wanted to see cities, and people, but I'm - I'm fine, I am, with the lighthouse and the sea-"

Isaac isn't really sure how he was going to finish that sentence. Truth be told, he was spitting words at that point, flailing for something coherent to say. Some way to apologize for nearly getting Ellis killed without having to lay his guilt bare, because his chest hurts and his face is burning and he can't make himself say it out loud.

But it doesn't matter what he was going to say, because Ellis stops him. He flattens his hand against the back of Isaac's head to keep Isaac still, and then he leans down and presses his mouth to Isaac's lips.

The only thing Isaac can think is that his brother's mouth is cold.

Ellis kisses him, and then leans back to breathe in, and then kisses him again. This time he moves his mouth against Isaac's and pushes Isaac's head forward. And it's not as if Isaac's never been kissed before. There have been people on the mainland. Some of them expected him to be strong, rugged, charming in the way Ellis always had been in town. That hadn't worked so well. It'd be easier with people who'd held him like this, who'd brought Isaac up to them. Ellis's eyes fall shut, and he kisses Isaac, and all Isaac can do is breathe in.

It makes his lips part. It's not like kissing back, but Ellis makes a quiet noise and draws Isaac's lower lip between his teeth. Isaac flinches.

Ellis lets out a breath. It's not like a laugh. He lets Isaac go, and he's not smiling, but the frown is gone.

Nothing comes next. There's not another kiss. There's no touching, or insistence, or anything. Ellis simply pushes the plate across the table and puts a fork in Isaac's hand. Isaac can't remember if he already ate lunch. His fingers are shaking. With the journal in his lap and Ellis watching him from across the table, he eats the meal with slow, careful bites.

It isn't until much later that he thinks: Why did suggesting a trip off the island make Ellis want to feed Isaac? How did that make sense? Maybe it was meant to be proof that Ellis had all his needs taken care of, and Isaac should keep his worries to himself.

It's not as if Isaac can ask.

—

Sometimes driftwood washes up on the shore. If it's lingered too long in the water, it teems with tiny gribbles, their pale shells weird in the sunlight. Sometimes Isaac can brush them off and salvage the wood, and other times they've eaten too much of it away, or his hands find squirming red shipworms. Other times the wood is relatively fresh. Caked with salt and soaked through, but solid.

Ellis's hands feel like driftwood now. They've settled stiff and solid on Isaac's hips. His thumbs slide under Isaac's untucked shirt and Isaac holds very still.

"I thought you were outside," Isaac says.

He didn't hear the door open. He knows he didn't. The journal incident (Isaac is steadfastly refusing to call it anything else, resolutely replacing the word _kiss_ with _journal_ any time he thinks about it) was two days ago, and Isaac has been waiting to be alone ever since. He'd taken the opportunity to hide his journal in some of their mother's old things, because he figures Ellis would never look there.

Like always - Like the always that's come, after watching the sea swallow Ellis before watching it give him back (although Isaac hadn't seen that part, had he?), Ellis doesn't say anything. His fingers press hard lines into Isaac's hips, and he pulls his younger brother back against his chest. His grip is tight enough that Isaac can't step forward. Isaac knows because he tries, not caring if Ellis would be hurt by it. Maybe Ellis needs to be hurt to learn.

But Ellis's hold is like a sucking currrent. Isaac can't break free.

All that's in front of them is a window. All Isaac can see is dry grass shifting in the morning sun, and the sea gray across the horizon. There's nowhere for him to get away to.

Isaac's back presses against Ellis's chest. He swallows as Ellis begins to move his hips, rubbing his front against Isaac's ass. It's startling in the way Ellis's cold hands are still startling. It's startling in the way that the nightmare was startling, the second time, when Isaac had woken up with Ellis holding Isaac's face against Ellis's chest. Isaac thinks this, and then tries not to think about how the nightmares have become less startling, the more they repeat.

"Ellis, please," Isaac says.

He tries to squirm, but he's no shipworm. Ellis holds him fast. Isaac's face heats and he can't blame the sun coming through the window. It's not the first time someone's held him like this. Not - Not exactly like this, not refusing to let go, but Isaac has said _please_ before and felt another man rut against him.

Ellis makes short movements, back and forth, never letting Isaac away from him. His breath grows loud. It reminds Isaac of a door left hung open to allow the breeze inside. Ellis's breath smells of salt, too, as he leans in and presses his cool cheek to the side of Isaac's face. His breath is hard in Isaac's ear, and his weight pushes Isaac forward so Isaac has to brace himself against the window. By the time Isaac's hands connect with the glass he can feel the swell of Ellis's cock pressing into him, against the barrier of their clothes.

Isaac expects to be driven forward flat against the window. Instead Ellis lets him remain in place, his arms keeping space between him and the glass. The side of Isaac's face feels damp where Ellis breathes on it. His brother's mouth presses against Isaac's skin.

When Ellis's hands let go, Isaac expects to be freed. He tries to step to the side. But Ellis wraps a strong arm around Isaac's middle, stronger than Isaac could ever aspire to even before the sea gave Ellis back. Ellis's other hand opens his clothing to free his cock. Then he reaches forward to fumble with the fastenings at the front of Isaac's trousers, until buttons give way and startlingly cool fingers dig into Isaac's clothes and wrap around his cock. Ellis doesn't bother to push Isaac's trousers down first.

Isaac leans forward. It means that Ellis's erection has a better angle to rub against his ass, but Isaac can't stand up any longer. It feels like there's water filling his stomach. He needs the window against his forehead for balance, even though his breath fogs up the glass until he can barely see outside.

Ellis thrusts against him. He runs his fingers along Isaac's cock, his touch so gentle it might as well be Isaac's own. Isaac squirms even though all it does is move his cock in his brother's loose grip. Ellis drags his lips along Isaac's jaw. His mouth closes over Isaac's earlobe, and his thumb strokes back and forth along Isaac's cock while he sucks at Isaac's ear. His tongue brushes Isaac's skin.

It makes Isaac's stomach clench. He breathes in and feels his lungs strain like they're filled with water. His brother's tongue is wet, and hot, and that would scare Isaac on its own except that as it traces a line over Isaac he can feel that Ellis's tongue is also _pointed._

Isaac jerks so violently it shakes Ellis's grip, and Ellis grunts with the effort of keeping Isaac held in place.

The next kiss to Isaac's ear feels - Feels normal, as normal as Ellis kissing his ear can be. His tongue hot and wet but not thin and or tapered at the end. Isaac gasps, trying to wrest out of Ellis's arm, but all he earns is Ellis groaning in his ear as Isaac rocks his ass along Ellis's cock.

"Ellis, please," he says again.

It makes Ellis moan. Not like he's in pain. His thumb rolls over the head of Isaac's cock again, making Isaac flinch. At some point Isaac has gotten hard, and Ellis uses his thumb to smear precome over Isaac's cock. Isaac tries to twist to look behind himself. He wants to see the look on Ellis's face.

No, he doesn't want to see the look on Ellis's face.

It doesn't matter, because he can't move that far. Ellis takes it as an invitation to nuzzle at Isaac's face and kiss his cheek. To shift his arm across Isaac's chest and thrust between Isaac's thighs, his cock rubbing against the bunched fabric of Isaac's trousers. At the same time he keeps making light strokes along Isaac's cock, but his focus has shifted. The thrusts he makes to bury himself between Isaac's legs means his chest thuds against Isaac's shoulders. Over and over.

"Please, Ellis," Isaac begs. He can hear himself whining.

He opens his mouth to say something else, anything else, but his head bounces against the window with the force of Ellis's next thrust and he can't find another word.

Ellis buries his face against Isaac's neck. His teeth worry little bites against the skin exposed above Isaac's collar. Isaac feels Ellis's tongue but can't tell if it's normal or thin and pointed. It's just his brother, nipping at Isaac's throat, tasting the marks after.

Isaac can feel his trousers and underwear start to ride down. The fabric is being pulled as Ellis ruts against him, until Ellis's cock is moving along Isaac's bare skin and Ellis is panting for breath in Isaac's ear. Ellis keeps thrusting his cock between the soft flesh of Isaac's thighs, rubbing up against Isaac's balls, the base of his shaft. He's bigger than any of the men Isaac's been with before. It's been some time, sure, but all Isaac can think about is how big Ellis's cock feels against him.

For some reason Isaac comes first.

Ellis grunts again. He teases the end of Isaac's cock with his thumb, and Isaac gasps and spills hot into Ellis's palm. Ellis pumps his hand along Isaac until Isaac is more than spent, until it almost hurts. When it _does_ hurt, Ellis finally lets go. He pushes his hand under Isaac's shirt and rests his palm on Isaac's stomach, not stretched full with seawater but aching all the same. Ellis's hand smears Isaac's come all over Isaac's skin.

The sure, steady movement of Ellis's hips stutters. Ellis makes a sound like he's being pulled open. His come spills between Isaac's thighs. It drips down Isaac's legs to stain drops on Isaac's clothing, bunched now around his knees. Ellis's arm is like an iron bar across Isaac's chest.

Ellis holds Isaac until his breathing steadies. He does not go to the effort of pulling Isaac's trousers up. He just fixes his own clothes and takes several steps back.

Isaac doesn't speak. He'd hit his head on the window. He can't find a word to say.

Ellis turns and goes back outside.

Isaac stands there, trembling, his forehead against the window and his hands flat on the glass. The mess on his skin cools until all he can feel is stickiness. Without Ellis's breathing to aggravate his own, his breath calms. The fog retreats from the glass until the view clears.

He can see dry grass shifting in the sunlight and Ellis standing at the shoreline, watching the sea.

—

Isaac decides that Ellis thinks _please_ means something other than what Isaac thinks it means. A plea to be held, instead of freed.

He endeavours to stop saying it around Ellis. He points at the things he wants Ellis to bring him, or says "I need you to wash these rags while I'm in the lighthouse," or simply lays things out on the table for Ellis to do and assumes that Ellis will do them. All of those things work. Ellis passes him tools, and cleans rags, and in halting penmanship updates the records of their rations while Isaac cleans the glass at the top of the lighthouse. There isn't much to record. The numbers are hardly different than when Isaac had been alone. Ellis eats very little, now, and never when Isaac can see.

Between day work and night work, Isaac takes dinner with Henry more often. He stays to help wash up because it's only fair. They don't talk much. Sometimes Henry gives Isaac cooking to do, and Isaac does it, because it's only fair. It makes the days stretch out longer. On the rare occasion that their hands brush as they pass something between them, Henry's hand is warm. (Henry is a living thing.) It warms Isaac to share his company.

When Isaac comes home from work he always looks to the rocking chair, but Ellis is never asleep again. Not after the … Not after what Ellis did with him, at the window.

Ellis is always awake and ready to follow Isaac to bed. Isaac tells him, "No," and points to Ellis's own room, but Ellis doesn't hear or looks so forlorn that Isaac gives in.

The nightmares are just as regular as Ellis's presence in Isaac's bed. They leave Isaac so shaken, it's almost nice to be held. To fall asleep with Ellis's heavy weight on top of him. (Had his brother always been this heavy?) Sometimes he can even sleep through most of the night without screaming.

What Isaac doesn't do is say, "Please."

All of those things work.

Except that they don't.

—

Isaac opens his eyes to pitch darkness. He blinks, and it shifts, so he can see his own skin. It looks pale blue, or gray. When he tilts his head back, locks of his dark hair drift above his forehead. He's floating in the water and he's deep enough that he can't see even the suggestion of light above. Somehow he knows he's looking up toward the surface. Somehow he knows that if he turns around and kicks, he'll be swimming toward the bottom.

He's somewhere deep enough that he could never, ever swim out again, but he's alone. Shouldn't the sea be full of life? Isaac is the only thing here. It's just the water, holding him in place.

The sea doesn't feel heavy. Isaac isn't wearing waterlogged clothes. He's not being dragged down, he's just… Here. He's not sinking, he's not floating, he's just hovering in the water. His skin is bare and he should be cold but he's not. The water slides over him like soft fabric when he spins. Water slides over his tongue, too, when he opens his mouth. Salt clings to Isaac's teeth. But it doesn't spill down his throat. If there's water in his stomach or lungs, it doesn't hurt. Isaac doesn't feel like he's being stretched open from the inside. He touches his fingertips to his throat and feels slit skin moving in time with his pulse.

Then he feels another hand close over his, and Isaac whirls around, trying to see his brother's face.

There's nothing there. Isaac can't see the surface, but he can see the pale shapes of his hands cutting through the water as he flails, looking for something to hold onto. His hands hit long strands of seaweed. It tangles around his wrists as he tries to swim his way out of the forest he suddenly finds himself in, as thick as any of the trees on the island but able to sway in the flow of the water. It's able to hold fast to his wrists. A band of it wraps around his thigh.

Kicking, all Isaac can feel is water rushing around his legs and slick seaweed clinging to his calves. He looks down, expecting to see the plants disappearing into darkness. Instead his head spins. It feels like the seaweed is reeling him down through the water. He can see the pale expanse of sand below.

Seaweed binds his legs together and when he kicks, he can't separate his legs. He gasps and feels water splash against the bottom of his lungs.

He looks up, but he doesn't see his brother. The only thing visible is the seaweed forest and the flash of something like silver fins cutting between the stalks. There are so many of them. Long arcs and tall fan shapes, batting the seaweed aside, flickering between strands to disappear into the dark before Isaac can see detail.

Where the water slides over Isaac's bare chest, it's taken on an oily sheen. Where it touches his lips, it's warm, and where it slides across his tongue, it's hot.

Isaac screams.

Ellis's hand clamps over Isaac's mouth.

The seaweed yanks taut. It pulls Isaac flat against his bedroom floor, but it can't keep him there. When he pulls his wrists up it all falls away into shreds. He kicks and his foot connects with Ellis's leg, not with sloshing seawater. Ellis has one hand clamped over Isaac's mouth and the other flat in the middle of his chest. He's kneeling on top of Isaac and breathing hard. There's sweat on his forehead. Isaac thrashes, and Ellis _strains_ to keep him on the floor.

It still feels like there's water in his lungs. Isaac screams against Ellis's hand, and flails, and finally manages to break out of Ellis's hold. He crawls toward the bedroom door, gasping, trying to get to his feet.

Ellis surges up behind him and wraps both arms around Isaac. He pulls Isaac against his chest and he can't seem to shush Isaac but he can whine, soft, nuzzling at Isaac's neck. Isaac screams again and claws at Ellis's arms. Ellis moans as if in pain. He doesn't let go.

It takes a long time before Isaac slumps back into Ellis's grip. It takes a long time before it feels like there's only air in his lungs.

Ellis can't tell him it's okay, but he can run his hand through Isaac's hair. He does, over and over, until Isaac has turned in Ellis's lap (he's not sure when he went from kneeling on the floor to sitting in Ellis's lap, but he's too tired to move) and buried his face in Ellis's neck. Ellis's chest is bare. Isaac's is too. Isaac thinks he wore a shirt to bed, but he's been screaming and fighting his brother in his sleep for weeks and weeks now so the thought that he wrestled himself out of his shirt isn't hard to swallow. Ellis's skin is cool on Isaac's cheek, and he smells like sweat and salt. Isaac thinks he could fall asleep here.

That's not fair, though. He looks up into Ellis's face. It's creased with worry. His brows are drawn together and his mouth is pressed into a thin line. He can't say he's scared, but Isaac can tell.

Isaac says, "You should go. You shouldn't stay here taking care of me."

Ellis's eyes shadow over. He bends to touch his forehead to Isaac's.

Isaac sighs. He shifts his head so he can press his mouth to Ellis's, and when Ellis's lips part in surprise, he leans up and presses his tongue into Ellis's mouth. Ellis tastes like salt and his tongue is hot on Isaac's own.

His brother is too surprised or too relieved (or too happy) to stop Isaac from pulling away and shakily getting to his feet, though. Isaac puts a hand on Ellis's shoulder to brace himself and takes several halting steps across the bedroom, until he can grab a bedpost and lower himself onto the mattress. He sits and looks down. Ellis is still on the floor. He's staring at Isaac with wide eyes and his mouth is wet.

"It has to be over. Go sleep in your own bed," Isaac begs. His eyes are wet, too. "Please."

Ellis doesn't listen, of course. Or he pretends not to hear.

—

One morning, Isaac wakes up with bright sunlight in his eyes and Ellis closing his lips around the soft shaft of Isaac's cock. Ellis has pulled Isaac's sleeping pants down. He's taken off his own pajamas - Isaac can see the muscles shift in his bare arms as Ellis adjusts his weight on the bed. Ellis's eyes are sea-gray when they lock with Isaac's. He pushes his head down, dragging his lips over Isaac's cock, and Isaac hears himself whine.

Ellis's tongue shouldn't be doing what it's doing. Ellis has his lips closed over Isaac, and his tongue curls around Isaac's shaft and squeezes. It makes heat throb in Isaac's gut. He finds himself thrusting into Ellis's mouth, pushing his cock against Ellis's tongue - Which is hot, and thin, and pointed at the end.

Or it is until Isaac tries to drag his hips back along the bed. Then it's suddenly just a tongue, his brother's tongue, stroking Isaac's cock to hardness while Ellis's hand grasps Isaac's thigh and keeps him in place.

Isaac groans. He puts his hand over his mouth.

Ellis sucks at him. He leans down, and drags his tongue along the underside of Isaac's cock, his mouth so wet and hot and close that Isaac is hard in only a few moments. Ellis makes a deep sound that's not a moan and the thin point of his tongue licks fast stripes over the head of Isaac's cock. He presses his tongue against the divot in the tip and there's a brief moment where Isaac can't imagine not being hard, not having Ellis's mouth closed around his cock.

Instead Isaac kicks his brother's shoulder as hard as he can. Everything he says gets ignored. Maybe Ellis needs to be hurt to learn.

Ellis just grunts. The kick doesn't make him let go of Isaac's leg, but it does make his head jerk back. Isaac's cock falls from his mouth.

When Ellis looks up at Isaac, his lips are red and wet, and when he opens his mouth to swallow Isaac back down Isaac can see the shifting gleam of water at the back of Ellis's throat. No one has ever done this for him before and Isaac is almost certainly losing his mind, but he knows what he sees and he knows it's not possible.

Isaac kicks Ellis again. His foot connects with Ellis's shoulder, and pain bursts up through Isaac's leg. He stuffs his fingers into his mouth to have something to bite down on. His knees bend, and his heels dig into the bed. It lifts his hips and drives his cock deeper into Ellis's mouth.

It should hurt Ellis. Isaac is trembling, and the way Ellis sucks at him makes his hips thrust eagerly up from the mattress. Ellis should be protesting but he isn't. He puts an elbow down on the bed to better prop himself up, so he can move his head back and forth. Ellis also takes advantage of the moments Isaac loses control and fucks himself into Ellis's mouth. When the tip of Isaac's cock enters Ellis's throat, Ellis's fingers claw greedily at Isaac's thigh. Like his tongue can be, his nails are too pointed, and his hand cuts at Isaac's skin.

The pain is sharp and prickling in a way the pain of kicking Ellis hadn't been. Isaac moves far enough back that Ellis's mouth is no longer on his skin.

Ellis puts a hand on Isaac's stomach and shoves him down. Isaac's head hits the wall. He winces, and then he gasps, because Ellis's hand has moved between his legs. Ellis wets his fingers with the spit and precome smeared over Isaac's cock, and then he presses two fingertips into Isaac's ass. He gives Isaac just long enough to understand where he's being touched before pushing his fingers all the way into Isaac, until his last knuckle bumps Isaac's skin. It hurts. It hurts, and then Ellis crooks his fingers and Isaac is whining again.

No, Isaac doesn't want to see the look on Ellis's face, but he lifts his head anyway.

It's been so long since Ellis came back, but this is the first time Isaac's seen him smile. Ellis tilts his head, mouthing at the side of Isaac's cock. He straightens and crooks his fingers until Isaac is choking back groans. It's only a flash, but when Ellis licks Isaac's cock, Isaac thinks he feels a pointed tongue and thinks he _sees_ something dark between Ellis's lips, not red.

Whatever the not-a-tongue in Ellis's mouth is shouldn't tip Isaac over the edge, but it does.

The fall is worse than when Ellis had cornered him against the window. It's bigger, and brighter, and Isaac can see it when the first bit of his come lands in Ellis's hair and across his face, before Ellis closes his mouth over Isaac again and swallows the rest.

Ellis leaves Isaac there on the bed by himself. It's the first time he's gotten out of bed without Isaac asking. He briefly looks Isaac over, and smiles again. He puts his pajamas on and leaves the bedroom.

The front door opens and shuts, probably Ellis leaving to go look at the water again.

It takes a minute before Isaac can sit up. There's more come further down the bed, where Ellis must have been rubbing himself against the sheets. Isaac looks at it and waits for the room to lurch. It doesn't. Instead Isaac kicks all the bedding to the floor and pulls his sleeping pants back up to his waist. He rolls over on his side and sleeps through lunch. It's the first time he's gone to sleep with the sun up in ages, and for once he has no nightmares at all. He doesn't choke on saltwater and doesn't have to kick against seaweed.

He almost rests.

Eventually, when Isaac wakes up, he drags himself through the house to the window that looks out at the lighthouse.

The house is empty. Ellis is not in the front yard. Ellis is still at the shore, at the base of the lighthouse.

In the open for anyone to see.

Isaac runs out barefoot to meet him. Isaac has to _beg,_ "Ellis, please, please, Henry won't understand," and pull on Ellis's shirt before Ellis allows himself to be led back to the house.

He digs his heels in at the door. Even Isaac taking Ellis's face in his hands and begging, _"Please,"_ doesn't work. Ellis just stares at him.

Ellis is two inches taller. Isaac has to lean up to kiss his brother's mouth. He doesn't know how he knows this will fix it, but it does. Ellis kisses him back. Something like a tongue presses into Isaac's mouth, and something like hands catch Isaac's waist and push Isaac into the house.

It's fine. Everything's fine. Henry doesn't see, and Isaac doesn't have to explain.

Ellis lets Isaac go in time for him to make it to work.

That day, at least.

—

The day Ellis doesn't let Isaac go, it's snowing. The house is sweltering because Ellis won't keep his hands off Isaac and Isaac is so cold. Isaac had kept filling the stove until the house was warm enough to make Ellis's touch less startling. It means he's going through his coal faster than he should but if he has to he'll chop down every tree on the island to stay warm. He's put extra blankets up over the windows to keep more of the heat in. They never had gotten around to fixing the gaps.

It means that he can't see how bad the snowstorm has gotten.

It also means that when Henry knocks on the door, he can't see that Ellis has bent Isaac over the kitchen table. Ellis has one hand in Isaac's hair and the other flat on Isaac's back, although it's been over a week since the last time Isaac really tried to push Ellis off of him. Now Isaac is just taking it. Ellis had dug out some oil and prepped the both of them, and now he's fucking Isaac so hard it's making the kitchen table inch forward across the floor.

Henry knocks, his fist like thunder at the door.

Ellis yanks at Isaac's hair. Isaac pants for breath, open-mouthed.

"Isaac? You were due half an hour ago. I can tell the lights are on."

Hearing the sound of another human voice in the little house, after so long, is shocking. Isaac can't answer.

Isaac also can't answer because Ellis, making a sound almost like a growl, pushes him forward against the table. He slides his hand out of Isaac's hair and cups it against the back of Isaac's neck to keep Isaac's forehead pinned to the table. Isaac tries to twist his head to look at the front door and can't.

Henry rattles the door. It doesn't open. Isaac knows it locks, because they used to lock it against high winds, but he can't remember the last time he needed to bolt it. Which means Ellis must have.

"Isaac?" Henry calls. He pounds on the door. "Are you all right?"

Ellis digs his fingers into Isaac's neck. He buries himself in Isaac until his hips meet Isaac's ass. He's been fucking Isaac for so long that Isaac's lost track of time. He hadn't let Isaac get as far as taking his shirt off, and despite the cold press of Ellis's body, Isaac has sweated through the fabric. Everything had hurt for the first couple of minutes, and then stopped hurting, and now it hurts again now. Ellis feels bigger like this. It feels like he's splitting Isaac open.

"Isaac?"

It's hard to draw in enough breath to shout through the door, but Isaac manages. Somehow. "Henry," he says, feeling Ellis's hand stiff and cold on his skin, "I'm sorry. I'm - I'm real sick, my head is spinning."

"Do you need help?" Henry asks. His voice is hesitant.

There's only so much help to be had out here. And no hope of the mainland, not in a storm.

"No. I'm sorry, I just-" Isaac swallows a groan as Ellis rolls his hips. "I just have to sleep it off. I'm sorry."

"S'alright," Henry says. "Happens to the best of us. I'll check in on you in the morning."

Ellis bends forward and kisses the back of Isaac's head as Henry leaves. He doesn't loosen his grip on Isaac's neck. He rolls his hips again, so the hard length of his cock presses against a spot that makes it too hard for Isaac to keep himself from crying out. But Henry must have walked away by then, or the snowstorm must swallow the noise, because there's not another knock at the front door.

They stay like that until Isaac is slumped against the table. He can't hold himself up anymore, and Ellis has pushed them over a foot forward from where they started. As soon as Isaac collapses under him, Ellis shifts his weight and takes his hand off the back of Isaac's neck. He starts kissing Issac's shoulders, and making quick thrusts, so the head of his cock nearly pulls free of Isaac's ass. Isaac lets out a whine and Ellis sucks in a sharp breath. He pulls back and reaches down between them, grasping his cock so he can move it teasingly against Isaac's entrance.

Isaac spreads his legs (when had he started doing that? this isn't the first time), but it doesn't get Ellis to move forward again. Ellis shudders with his cock in his hand, just barely pressed into Isaac, so his come drips along the cleft of Isaac's ass and down along Isaac's legs. Ellis pumps his hand back and forth until he's spent.

If it had been any other night, Ellis would have brought his hand around and finished Isaac off.

This night brings the threat of a visitor in the morning.

While Ellis gets dressed, Isaac stays on the table. The spots where he's sweated through his shirt are cold. Isaac wants to get up and throw himself under the blankets on the bed. He wants Ellis to come back and jerk him off. He wants to throw himself out into the snow. Isaac can't get warm, and Ellis's come is on his skin, and he's so painfully hard he'd beg for it if only Ellis would come back.

Isaac regrets thinking that when Ellis does come back.

Ellis pulls Isaac off the table. He'd walked away to get dressed, apparently, because he's wearing a sweater and pants and boots. He yanks Isaac's pants back to his waist and holds up a coat.

Isaac sways. It feels like he's just stepped out of the sea, and his body still wants to move with it.

He lets Ellis put him into the coat. He lets Ellis put his feet into shoes. The arousal starts to fade but the adrenaline stays. Isaac is too worked up to do anything but what Ellis wants him to do. He doesn't protest when Ellis drags him to the door, even though the stove is still going. He doesn't argue when Ellis pulls him through the fresh snowfall. Isaac doesn't fight about closing the door behind them even though the light spilling out of the house will let Henry know the door is open, if he looks this way.

The snow is coming down fast enough that Henry's footprints, leading off toward the lighthouse, are nearly covered already. Henry won't leave the lighthouse unless he has to.

The snow makes everything quiet. It's falling in large, wet flakes that stick to Isaac's hair and coat.

The snow melts where it touches Ellis.

Isaac sways, and lets his brother drag him to the shore.

Despite the fact that Henry is still working and that Isaac is supposed to be, there shouldn't be anyone on the water. It should be dark from here to the mainland. Ellis brings Isaac right up to the shoreline. He's breathing hard, and his hand is like a vise around Isaac's wrist. Isaac feels soil crumble under his boots. The sea stretches dark and huge in front of them, but it isn't empty.

A single light bobs in the water. It looks like the kind of lantern a man would put in the bow of his boat to guide himself home.

Isaac blinks. The light disappears. Ellis's grip on his wrist hurts.

He blinks again, and the light is back. Strobing. Swiping back and forth, like a lighthouse beacon. Isaac watches it illuminate the surface of the water. The beam should catch nothing but waves, but as it swerves, Isaac sees flashes of silver fins and strange, oily bubbles breaking through the sea. What he does not see is the answering beacon from the lighthouse behind them. The water is dark, except for this one strobing light, a small lantern sailing closer and closer.

Unhappy childhood experiment taught Isaac (taught Ellis and him both) that the water in this spot is deep enough to swallow them whole.

The lantern light comes back. It hides the shape of whatever vessel it's on. All Isaac sees is snow melting on the water.

Ellis lets go of his wrist. Isaac turns to look at him. Ellis touches his hand to Isaac's face, and his thumb wipes snowmelt off Isaac's cheek.

Before the sea had taken him, Ellis had been older than Isaac by three years, taller than him by two inches, and strong enough to carry his younger brother over his shoulder. He'd had Isaac's dark hair and their mother's light eyes.

The thing that leans forward and tentatively kisses Isaac's mouth has white pits for eyes.

Its lips are cold, and the tongue it presses forward when Isaac parts his lips is thin, and pointed, and hot against Isaac's own.

Isaac doesn't feel himself being turned around so his back is to the sea. He just feels soil crumbling under the heels of his boots. He feels the desperate kiss at his mouth, and winter air in his lungs when the thing in his brother's skin pulls back. The lantern shines on them, and because Ellis had been taller, the light catches the almost-eyes in the thing's head.

"Did Ellis hit his head?" Isaac asks.

Isaac's lover swallows. Its mouth is turned down, and its hands are cold when they come up to hold Isaac's face.

Isaac is shivering. It's too cold. His lover's hands are cold, and there's snow in his hair, and the wind off the seat cuts straight through his coat. But he has to ask.

"Was he dead before you took him?"

Its hands tighten on Isaac's face. The lantern light comes back, briefly. The pits where eyes should be have some kind of sheen to them - Like the inside of a seashell. Snow hits its face and melts in tracks along its cheeks. It doesn't speak.

He had wanted to see his brother's face so badly. One last time, even if it had just been to bury him. He'd watched the horizon on so many days and for so many hours. In his head, he'd begged the surface of the water to give him Ellis's body back. There are no words on his brother's gavestone and no body in the ground. Isaac had wished, and hoped, and pleaded. He may have even said _please,_ in undirected prayers. He hadn't gone in the water, but he'd watched it.

Isaac supposes he shouldn't be surprised it had watched him, too.

He turns his head and kisses the inside of his lover's wrist.

It makes a sound like it's in pain, and when it pushes Isaac, the shove is as desperate as its last kiss.

Isaac hits the water so hard he briefly blacks out. That doesn't make sense. The edge of the island isn't so high that his fall would have that much force. But it happens, and then there's no time to make sense of anything, anyway. When he and Ellis had been children, they'd jumped into the water here against their father's cautions. That experiment had taught Isaac how terrifying it is to leap into water that's deeper than you thought.

The lesson he'd learned that day is the thought that bubbles up in his mind now, as his hands brush something that feels like the edge of a spiny fin. The sea is a heavy thing. It soaks Isaac's coat and pulls him down. 

But tonight, the sea doesn't swallow him whole.

Isaac doesn't hit the bottom.

Something catches him, instead.


End file.
